Whistle While You Work
Whistle While You Work
I am guilty of that most unladylike fault, whistling—in the house, no less. (For some inexplicable reason, I usually burst forth with “Deck the Halls.”) It usually doesn’t last very long. Either I remember myself and convert to humming, or else I audaciously continue until there comes the inevitable protest: “Who is whistling?” I halt with a wheeze in the midst of “Fa-la-la-la-la-la.” “It’s me,” is the abashed and ungrammatical confession.
Just whistle while you work
And cheerfully together we can tidy up the place
So hum a merry tune
It won't take long when there's a song to help you set the pace
Something about hard work seems to call forth music. Think of the chanteys of sailors, railroad workers, and corn-grinders. Each had special songs to hasten and gladden their work hours. Many of the rhythmic tasks of a homekeeper also lend themselves to song. Years ago, in the works of Longfellow, I first became acquainted with women who sang as they fulfilled their duties. Then, I didn’t know that anyone did that. My mama, when feeling especially chipper, would launch into “I feel pretty, oh so pretty...” from West Side Story. Other than that fascinating and fun occurrence, singing was only for church.
The images of Acadian and Puritan maidens singing at the spinning wheel, clung to me, however. Eventually they prevailed upon me, and I began to tentatively whisper-sing while I worked. (I don’t whisper-sing much anymore. I can be very loud when I want to be.)
This first excerpt is taken from Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie. In the village of Gran-Prè, the pious women made their work sacred by weaving it with musical praise to God,
There in the tranquil evenings of summer, when brightly the sunset
Lighted the village street and gilded the vanes on the chimneys,
Matrons and maidens sat in snow-white caps and in kirtles
Scarlet and blue and green, with distaffs spinning the golden
Flax for the gossiping looms, whose noisy shutters within doors
Mingled their sound with the whir of the wheels and the songs of the maidens.
In The Courtship of Miles Standish, John Alden finds his lovely Priscilla also at the spinning wheel with a song on her lips. (The imagery here is enchanting.)
Heard, as he drew near the door, the musical voice of Priscilla
Singing the hundredth Psalm, the grand old Puritan anthem,
Music that Luther sang to the sacred words of the Psalmist,
Full of the breath of the Lord, consoling and comforting many.
There as he opened the door, he beheld the form of the maiden
Seated beside her wheel. and the carded wool like a snowdrift
Piled at her knee, her white hands feeding the ravenous spindle,
While with her foot on the treadle she guided the wheel in its motion.
Open wide on her lap lay the well-worn psalm-book of Ainsworth,
Printed in Amsterdam, the words and the music together,
Rough-hewn angular notes, like stones in the wall of the churchyard,
Darkened and overhung by the running lines of the verses.
Such was the book from whose pages she sang the old Puritan anthem,
She, the Puritan girl, in the solitude of the forest,
Making the humble hose and the modest apparel of homespun
Beautiful with her beauty, and rich with the wealth of her being!
I imagine that the poetic Evangeline and Priscilla were superlative singers. I am not. I sing at church because there are so many people I am sure I cannot be heard; I sing at the “old folks” home because most of my audience is deaf; and I sing at home because my family (bless their longsuffering hearts) love me too much to kick me out. Possibly, I am not so bad as that (practice actually does improve), but I do have my fair share of straining, cracking, squeaking, and choking.
I do love to sing, though; and I have learned that one needn’t be an opera diva to get (and give) a good deal of satisfaction and pleasure in singing. In fact, joyful singing is a Biblical command. Ephesians 5:19-29 reminds us to speak to ourselves “in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.“ You get addicted to it, too; after several days of musical silence, I literally ache to sing, and I inevitably fetch out my song-notebook and cajole a few siblings to join me.
There is something so satisfying, so fitting about singing while I work. I especially enjoy it when my sisters and brothers join in, sometimes from all different quarters of the house. The whole place rings with the symphony of industry. Next Sister thumps irons, Littlest Sister flaps a dusting cloth, I knead bread, Biggest and Next Brothers wield pencils, and the littlest boys just hop about, and we all sing “The Lord’s My Shepherd” or “When the Roll is Called Up Yonder” or “A Frog He Would a-Wooing Go” or “Billy Boy” or favorite Broadway musical numbers. We sing until we can talk only in whispers.
I am sure we can’t be the only ones. What do you enjoy singing while you work?
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ELISSA said...
Oh, dear... I didn’t know whistling was unladylike. I am very hopeless then, because I don’t think I could break myself of whistling anymore than of laughing. In fact, I was whistling when I clicked on this post. :-) Ha-ha—isn’t “Deck the Halls” so fun to whistle?
And I sing all the time while I work. I love to sing “Amazing Grace”—Il Divo-style at the top of my lungs. “Be Thou My Vision,” “Loch Lomond,” “Billy Boy,” “A Happy Working Song, “My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose,” “L..O.V.E,” “Somewhere Beyond the Sea,” and MANY other songs. When I’m doing dishes, I like to stick hymn sheets up on the window so I can have all the lyrics.
Thanks for such a delightful post!! —Elissa
Friday, October 30, 2009 09:58 PM
HANDMAIDEN said...
Keep singing, Elissa! (A dark secret: I don’t actually plan to give up whistling... ;-)
How funny!—I too have been known to prop up hymn lyrics on the kitchen window when doing dished.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009 07:02 PM
HANDMAIDEN said...
You know what’s fun to whistle?—”Bugler’s Holiday” by Leroy Anderson. I remembered this as I was cleaning out the GMC motor-home all this afternoon.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009 06:50 PM
Friday, October 30, 2009